Collectors, the National Sports Collectors Convention kicks off today in Rosemont, IL, and we’ll be at the show all week hanging out. Want to catch up live? Come to the ONIT Athlete space (booth 80005) to say hi.

Every year the show is packed with people, brands and of course, collectibles making news, and we’ll be sure to bring the best stuff to you here, on Yahoo Sports and on our socials.

So today we’ll just whet the appetite with a few Mantel/Yahoo Sports articles posted this week that have us excited for the next 5 days of The National.

You don’t need to be in Rosemont to find community in collecting. Mike Metzler went deep to find why card shops across the country are becoming local hubs for The Hobby and how collecting is creating community.

ONIT Athlete had 13 MLB first round draft picks featured in their 2026 college baseball team set, including #1 overall pick Roch Cholowsky of UCLA. As the ONIT team is getting ready to release their 2026 football sets, head of product Cory Hollingsworth talked to Andrew Gretchko about how the company works with universities and athletes to bring the best of college sports to collectors.

LeBron’s announcement that he was going to the Sixers surprised seemingly everyone, except the team at Topps. This is the first time I recall that a major announcement was broken with a trading card, and I love what it represents for our industry (though as a Lakers fan, I wish LeBron’s jersey on the card had been purple and gold).

Most of us won’t be buying LeBron cards at the top of the market. But luckily there are a few fun, inexpensive ways to collect the King. J.R. Fickle went down the list from Italian cards to inserts to… coat hangers. It’s an entertaining read.

I’m going to be sitting on stage with Brian Ludden later today at The National, so I read this piece as a cheat-sheet for our conversation. Brian and team continue to do innovative things in the hobby, which is quickly becoming very tech-forward after years and years of being stuck in the cardboard.

I love when art meets sports cards and collectors benefit from the creation of cultural artifacts vs. just photos on cardboard. This was a fun read about a newer card company creating art focused on hip hop and rappers. I love the MF Doom T206, and may or may not have one in my shopping card atm.